In recent years, floors, especially those in large industrial or institutional settings, have been protected and cleaned using a spray-buff process in which the floor is buffed with a buffer or buffing machine after lightly spraying it with an appropriate liquid solution. The solutions used typically are polymer floor finishes for a dry cleaning process or other spray-buff or cleaning solutions expressly sold for such purposes. Water or a detergent solution may also be used. In early models, a sprayer was hand held and manually actuated to spray selected areas of the floor prior to buffing it with a buffer. Later, more complex sprayer units were manufactured which were secured to the buffer. Most of these units were pressurized with nitrogen or air, and all such sprayer units had a special nozzle in the dispensing head. Often, this nozzle become clogged and considerable time was required to clean the nozzle. Rather than spend the time, many operators would resort to the old hand held sprayers or not spray the floor at all.
More recent models have included non-pressurized sprayer units which are detachable from the buffer for replacement such as the LIQUA-SPRAYER Buffer Attachment manufactured by T.S.S. Manufacturing of Elkhart, Ind. Such models have nozzles which are spaced from the fluid reservoir, thus necessitating the application of the solution to the nozzle by siphoning. In both the pressurized and non-pressurized sprayer units, the position of the nozzle is not readily adjustable either with respect to the machine or with respect to the angle formed between the nozzle and the floor. Additionally, most of such known sprayers cannot be used with all types of buffers.